On Monday, number 2 overall hard drive manufacturer Western Digital announced it had purchased SiliconSystems for $65 million in cash, thus entering the solid-state drive (SSD) market via acquisition.

Just last November, WD was still cautious on SSDs (to say the least) saying:

“Western Digital enters markets that exist, announces products when they are available, and runs a tight model with opportunities greater than resources such that we take a controlled, methodical, sequential, incremental approach to product portfolio expansion.”

In other words, at the time WD didn’t feel there was a market for SSDs, or perhaps a large enough one.

However, SiliconSystems delivers SSDs for the embedded systems market. In terms of consumer products, the Q&A delivered with the press release says this:

a) Today’s acquisition strengthens and accelerates our ability to get to market with additional SSD products. We announce new products when they begin shipping.

b) WD implements new products and technologies that are meaningful to customers and at a time when the company can maximize the critical balance of cost, reliability, quality and availability, while meeting our customers’ needs.

Here’s what John Coyne, president and CEO of WD, says in the press release:

“We are delighted to have the SiliconSystems team join WD. The combination will be modestly accretive to revenue and margins as a result of SiliconSystems’ existing position as a trusted supplier to the well-established $400 million market for embedded solid-state drives. SiliconSystems’ intellectual property and technical expertise will significantly accelerate WD’s solid-state drive development programs for the netbook, client and enterprise markets, providing greater choice for our customers to satisfy all their storage requirements.”

In other words, both blurbs seem to indicate WD decided they were behind, wanted to accelerate development of consumer products, and aren’t ready to say when they will deliver just yet. Expect it to be relatively soon, though.

Now, Seagate, about your own SSDs?